Janja Lalich: how normal people end up in cults like NXIVM

Saturday Morning | RNZ |

It’s a myth that only “stupid weird crazy people” get tied up with cults, says cult expert Dr Janja Lalich.

Idealism is what these people have in common, she tells Kim Hill.

Dr Lalich knows from experience. In the ’70s and ’80s, she herself was a senior member of what she now calls a cult – the radical Marxist-Leninist group Democratic Workers Party, led by sociology professor Marlene Dixon.

Like other members, Dr Lalich was forbidden from seeing outsiders – unless trying to recruit them, forced to live in share houses with other members, work every day to the point of exhaustion and turn over all of her income.

Since leaving the organisation – which she helped to dissolve – Dr Lalich has spent decades helping people escape and recover from such manipulative groups.

Continue reading: How normal people end up in cults